In a first of its kind incident in Ranchi Rail Division, an elephant and its calf got killed after being hit by a train near Gautam Dhara Station early Monday morning, around 65 km from here. A joint team of Railway and forest officials was immediately rushed to the spot to take stock of the situation and a meeting was called to chalk out further action plan to avoid such situation.
Officials asserted that the elephants, said to be a part a herd of elephants, spotted in the area, were knocked down probably by Bhagalpur-Ranchi Express between Gautam Dhara and Gangaghat stations while crossing the track.
“It was a side collision between the elephants and the train which took place probably in the process of saving the calf by the female elephant from the moving train when it got stuck on the railway line. It appears to be a part of a herd of 14 elephants crossing the track, spotted recently in the area,” said Senior Divisional Commercial Manager of Ranchi Division Neeraj Kumar.
It was such a massive collision that the bodies of the elephants fell on two different tracks after the accident. The elephant’s body fell on loop line while the calf’s carcass spread across the main line. Train movement could be restored only after removing calf’s carcass from the main line which took around two hours, he said.
“Generally the speed limit for train movement on Ranchi-Muri line is 95 km per hour but they run on an average speed of 70 km per hour. Following the incident, a direction has been issued to all loco pilots to blow whistle on regular intervals while moving on this route to shoo away the elephants,” said Kumar.
Additional Divisional Rail Manager Vijay Kumar immediately called on Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and informed him about the incident. Forest officials revealed that age of the calf was not more than a week. “Since, the calf was not more than one week old, it could not move down the track when the train was moving towards it. The female elephant, which was probably its mother, also got killed while trying to save the calf,” said DFO Ranchi Rajiv lochan Bakshi.
Following the spot visit, a meeting was held between forest and railway officials where it was decided to restrict the speed limit of trains in the area to 30-40 km per hour. “As the herd is still in the same locality and there are chances they could move again to this side, we have asked the Railway officials to restrict the speed limit to 30-40 km per hour. They have also been asked to blow long whistles as frequent alarm,” said Bakshi. Elephant depredation Team has already been alerted in the area to drag the elephants away from the railway tracks, he said.
The DFO said that since it was a natural habitat of elephants the area was prone to such incidents.
“As population of tuskers has remarkably increased in the State, elephants in Ranchi have potential danger from three sides—Silli, Sikidari and Budmu,” said Bakshi. Current population of resident elephants in Ranchi was around 60, he added.